Eternals (Homo immortalis)
| Aliases = Eternals | Identity = Secret | Affiliation = | Universe = Earth-616 | BaseOfOperations = Olympia, Earth; Titan (Moon of Saturn); Formerly Titanos; Uranus | BodyType = Humanoid | AvgHeight = Variable | AvgWeight = Variable | Eyes = Variable | Hair = Variable | Skin = Variable | NumberOfLimbs = 4 | NumberOfFingers = 5 | NumberOfToes = 5 | SpecialAdaptations = | UnusualFeatures = | Origin = Offshoots of humanity and other races created by the Celestials. | GalaxyOfOrigin = Milky Way | StarSystemOfOrigin = Sol | HomePlanet = Earth | PlaceOfBirth = Earth | Creators = Jack Kirby; | First = | HistoryText = The scope of this article is to discuss the history of the Eternals of Earth. For more information of other Eternal races please refer to the specific page for that race (Kree, Skrulls etc.) Origins The Eternals are an offshoot of the human race that were genetically altered by the Celestials during their first visit to Earth during the dawn of man (commonly referred to as the First Host) to manipulate pre-humans, which were evolved into three distinct races. The first was the mainline race of humanity that consists of the majority of the planet, the other two included the cosmically powered Eternals, and the genetically unstable Deviants. Specifically in the case of the Eternals of Earth, they were created by the Celestial known as Nezarr the Calculator, endowing them with the ability to harness the power of cosmic energy and releasing them into the world. A Race Divided The Eternals formed their own secret society, the city of Titanos away from the eyes of man under the leadership of brothers Kronos and Uranos. While Kronos led the Eternals to building one of the most highly advanced civilizations in the history of the Earth, Uranos demanded that the Eternals go to war and conquer all those that were beneath them. The two argued their beliefs polarizing the Eternals until a civil war broke out between both factions. In the end it was Kronos and his followers won and defeated the forces of Uranos. Uranos and his followers Arlok, Astron, Shastra, and Thyrio among others were all banished with him. With Uranos and his followers banished to space, Kronos ushered in an era of peace, harmony and enlightenment. Kronos then began experimenting with cosmic energy to find new ways to harness the very energy that empowered them. However an accident caused a cylinder of cosmic energy to explode, atomizing Kronos' body and merging his consciousness with the universe while decimating the Eternals' home. However, the Eternals of Earth found that they survived thanks to their leader's experiment granting them near-immortality and even greater power than they had ever harnessed before. The sons of Kronos, Zuras and A'Lars were adults by the time of the accident and the Eternal society was left to decide who would lead them. Zuras and A'Lars feared that a potential division between their people could start another civil war, but they were then visited by the consciousness of their father who told them that the Eternals were gifted with a new ability, to merge into a single entity called the Uni-Mind so that their people could make a collective decision. In doing so, it was decided that Zuras was to be the leader of the Eternals, he was granted the Flames of Regency and the title of Prime Eternal. A'Lars, bowing to the will of his people decided that in order to maintain peace among his people, he had to leave and flew into space on a self-imposed exile. Meanwhile, Uranos and his followers had traveled deep into the solar system, discovering a Kree outpost on the planet Uranus. Their presence activated Kree Sentry #213 and a battle erupted ending in an Eternal victory. However, the destruction of the Sentry alerted the Kree to activity on their abandoned outpost. Uranos and his followers then used the technology on Uranus to construct a rocket ship to return to Earth and get revenge against the Eternals that forced their exile; but they left four of their number behind on Uranus. Uranos and his crew were intercepted en route to Earth by a Kree armada that blasted their ship into pieces, leaving the Eternals to float in the void presumably dead--but the Eternals survived the attack. Arriving on Uranus, the Kree encountered Uranos' follower Arlok dead in space and experimented on his corpse. They discovered the potential for mutation in the human race and decided to conduct experiments on humans themselves, eventually spawning yet another offshoot of humanity known as the Inhumans. Uranos and his crew eventually drifted to Titan one of the moons of Saturn and developed a new colony there. However, eventually the violent ways of Uranos returned and another war broke out, decimating all the Eternals on Titan, leaving Sui-San the lone survivor. Eventually, A'Lars came upon Titan in his exile and the pair repopulated the moon with the invention of the super-computer ISAAC as well as cloning and fertility technology. With time the consciousness of Kronos soon came to reside on Titan as well, and was seen as a patriarch of the Eternals of Titan. Meanwhile, the surviving Eternals on Uranus who were undiscovered by the Kree encountered the native Uranians. Recognizing them as exiles, the Uranians allowed the remaining Eternals to live out their exile at the Kree outpost on Uranus under the condition that if they ever left their enclosed environment they would face destruction. Ancient History Back on Earth, the Eternals expanded to a number of colonies, Oceana in the Pacific Ocean, Polaria in what is modern day Siberia, and the capital city of Olympia located in the mountains of Greece. Interactions between the Eternals and the human race began to increase over the centuries due to Deviant plots of conquest. In 18,000 BC the Second Host came to Earth and observed Deviant domination of most of the human race and acted accordingly by sinking the Deviant domain of Lemuria, causing massive flooding that prompted action from such Eternals as Ikaris to come to the aid of humanity. Also during this period, the Celestials punished one of their own, Tiamut the Dreaming Celestial, trapping its essence and leaving it in the care of Valkin in the Pyramid of the Winds. Also active during this period was the exiled Eternal known as the Forgotten One. This period also found the Eternals being mistaken for various members of the various pantheons of gods that were worshiped by regular humanity. One race of gods that took particular issue with this were the Olympians, as the majority of Eternals active on Earth were commonly mistaken for members of their pantheon over all others. However a non-interference pact was forged between Olympian ruler Zeus and Prime Eternal Zuras. As a show of good faith for their new found unity, Zuras' daughter Azura re-christened herself Thena, after Athena, daughter of Zeus. For the most part, the activities of the Eternals over the past centuries were mostly unrecorded beyond this point. In the sixth century, an Eternal known as the Interloper was active in the kingdom of Camelot after centuries of battling the Dragon of the Moon. The Interloper joined the forces of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table against the forces of Mordred (empowered by the Dragon) seemingly vanquishing the Dragon, although it returned to menace the Earth again centuries later. Around 1000 AD, the Eternals were also involved in a clash with the Deviant named Dromedan, gaining the assistance of the Asgardian thunder god Thor. The batted ended in the death of the Eternal Virako. In order to safeguard themselves and the Celestials goals, the Eternals erased Thor's memory of the encounter, the thunder god not having his memories restored until many centuries later. With the arrival of the Third Host, the Eternals worked with the Celestials in their cultivation process, the final preparations for their next scheduled visit. To this end, the Polarian Eternal Ajak was assigned as communicator for the Celestials and placed in suspended animation within the Temple of the Space Gods constructed by the ancient Incas, and Ikaris was charged with attuning his senses to detect the Celestials upon their next arrival on Earth. Further activities of the Eternals were mostly unrecorded until they resurfaced among humanity in the later half of the 20th Century. 20th Century In the 1930s, with the outbreak of World War II, Earth scientist Matthew Grayson made contact with the Uranian Eternals, who provided him with the knowledge to build a rocket to escape Nazi Germany with his infant son Robert. The Eternals on Uranus (a colony founded by Astron who defected from Uranos' group) then welcomed the Grayson family with open arms, raising Robert as one of their own. The Uranian Eternals were secretly plotting to re-establish ties with the planet Earth in an attempt to be reunited with their planet of origin and influence the society into what they viewed as a utopia. Monitoring the progress of the war on Earth, the Uranian Eternals waited for the ideal opportunity to begin their agenda, and upon witnessing the activities of Earth's super-soldier Captain America decided to groom Robert into the image of a super-hero the people of Earth could relate to, their ambassador to Earth. Activity by the earthbound Eternals during this period was at first minimal in the 1940s until the Deviant warlord Kro began involving himself in the affairs of humans, posing as Pluto. He initially interacted with the Nazis during the War, prompting Zuras to send his warrior Makkari to deal with him as Mercury. Makkari later renamed himself Hurricane and continued to battle Kro and other menaces during the war. In 1950, the Uranian Eternals dispatched the Uranian to Earth to establish himself as a super-hero. This was fraught with complications due to the rise of the Cold War, but thanks to some publicity from Timely Comics and the new name Marvel Boy, the Uranian soon became a renowned super-hero. Marvel Boy also came to the defense of his adopted people, such as when Uranus was invaded by the Satanians, who attempted to sow dissent among the masses, or when fighting corruption among the Uranian police force, and even preventing a plot from Uranian dissidents to steal a new atomic formula. However, these stories were adapted by Timely Comics into comic books about Marvel Boy's exploits and may be false. By 1955, the Uranian Eternals began to feel that they were losing their grip on Marvel Boy and he was straying away from his mission, in order to get him back on track they secretly murdered his father, making it appear he died of a Uranian disease in order to get Marvel Boy back to Uranus. When they found that the boy was intent on returning to Earth and continuing his mission, they gifted him with hover technology to allow him to fly in the hopes of giving the human race a "real" super-hero to eventually trust. By 1957, Marvel Boy became the central subject of interest of a subversive FBI agent, who was ultimately stopped by agent Jimmy Woo. Woo then recruited Marvel Boy into his G-Men of Department Zero, much to the protests of his Uranian masters. But by then, Marvel Boy had determined that the human race needed to find its own way, with no tampering by the Uranian Eternals. Unbowed, the Uranians planned for the eventual return of Marvel Boy and began grooming the Eternal Thelius to be their Marvel Boy replacement. Soon the native Uranians learned of this plan, found it in violation of their pact with the Eternals, and wiped them all out. The dying Eternals sent a distress call to Marvel Boy, who came in answer to it, learning the truth of his adopted people along the way. He arrived too late to save them and was absorbed into the Uranian hive mind, his biology adapted into a hybrid form. Meanwhile, his doppelganger, Thelis--with an incomplete transfer of Marvel Boy's memories--was rushed through completion and was released. Marvel Boy, being bonded to the Uranians, was unable to stop Thelis as he flew to Earth, which he would not reach until the modern age. Also during the '50s, when Warlord Kro began unleashing his monstrous mutates onto the Earth, Makkari resurfaced as well. Posing as a member of the National Security Agency, he formed the Monster Hunters to stop Kro's plans, also encountering the First Line. When the human race split the atom, a concerned group of Eternals, Humans, and Deviants formed the secret Damocles Foundation to study the next dominant race on Earth, and determined this to be Mutants. In the 1960s the Eternal Pixie joined the First Line and convinced Makkari to join for a while as well. Pixie was the only active member to survive when the team sacrificed their lives to stop a Skrull invasion of Earth. The Eternals also finally met the Inhumans, whose nation of Attilan was located in the Atlantic Ocean. With the Inhumans risking discovery from the outside world due to advances in human travel, the Eternals assisted them in regaining their anonymity by helping move Attilan to the Himalayas. Members of the Eternals soon branched off and infiltrated the world of normal humans. Sersi and Kingo Sunen got into show business while Valkin, Druig, Aginar and Zarin joined the KGB. Modern Age Fourth Host When the Fourth Host of Celestials was approaching Earth, Ikaris (under the guise of cameraman Ike Harris) led archaeologist Daniel Damian and his daughter Margo to the Celestials' beacon and revealed the true history of Earth to them. They were then attacked by a force of Deviants led by Kro. Ikaris fought them off and reawakened Ajak who activated the beacon. When the Deviants reacted by attacking New York City, capturing Ikaris and Sersi, Zuras ordered Makkari and Thena to defend the city. After Thena had reached a truce with Kro, she decided to reveal their races' existence to humanity via Samuel Holden, an anthropology Professor at City College. Thena attended Purity Time in Deviant Lemuria as Kro's guest, and witnessed mortal combat between the Mutates and Rejects. When one of the Celestial Host arrived to monitor Lemuria, the Deviant response led to full chaos and rioting in the streets. During the outbreak, Thena made contact with two of the outcast combatants, Ransak and Karkas, and took them under her charge. She brought them back to Olympia where they became her wards. Ikaris was forced to confront his treacherous cousin Druig, who wanted to steal a weapon from the Pyramid of the Winds allegedly used by the Celestials to kill one of their own during the Second Host. Druig was molecularly disintegrated by the energies released in the Pyramid, and the Celestial proved capable of disabling the weapon's effects anyway. Judgment Day When the time came for Celestial judgment, the combined Pantheons of Earth lent their power to Odin of Asgard and his Destroyer armor. Empowered by the Skyfathers and the united life essence of the Asgardian people, Odin possessed the Destroyer and grew to the size of the Celestials, wielding the Odinsword in defense of Earth. The Eternals, led by Zuras, formed the Uni-Mind and joined the Destroyer in confronting the Fourth Host. During the battle, the Celestials struck the Uni-Mind, causing it to dismantle back into individual Eternals. Zuras deliberately took the brunt of the Celestials' assault, and perished as a result of the Uni-Mind's dissolution. In the aftermath of the battle, the Eternals returned to Olympia but were unprepared for Deviant treachery. Brother Tode and Kro's forces lay in wait, secretly abducting and brain-mining the Eternals one-by-one. Tode developed a process for disassembling Eternal molecules. He believed inhaling their cosmic molecules would somehow transfer their immortality to him. During a brief period of awareness, Thena managed to summon Iron Man to Olympia, and he helped her free the rest of the Eternals. During these events, the inert body of Zuras was brought before Thena to "jumpstart" her cosmic energies. The process led to the final and permanent death of Zuras. Under Thena's Rule ... Under Ikaris' Rule ... Eternals Reborn ... Alternate Universe Eternals Earth X (Earth-9997) The past history of the Eternals of Earth-9997 mostly mirrors that of their Earth-616 counterparts. However, it's been revealed that, at least on Earth-9997 the Celestials intentions for the Eternals was not exactly the beneficent intent they had thought. The Celestials method of reproduction is to impregnate the planet with a portion of their energy (or embryo) and imbed Vibranium in the planets core. Eventually after centuries of gestation the a new Celestial would be born, destroying the planet. In order to protect the Celestial growing within the planet, they would manipulate the DNA of the dominant species to act as unknowing anti-bodies. On Earth, it would be pre-historic man that would be manipulated in such a fashion. Their first attempt yielded the Deviants, unstable creatures who were born in new and more horrifying forms within each generation, they were naturally evil. In order to counteract these creatures they created the Eternals, god-like beings who were immortal and had fantastic powers. They would act as the shepherds of humanity and act as defenders against the Deviants and other invaders while baseline humanity went through the Celestials natural evolutionary course to gain super-powers. In the convening years, the Eternals (who were mistaken for the Gods of popular myth) grew disinterested in humanity and became reclusive, allowing the Deviants to take control over the Earth. This would prompt the Celestials to come again and free humanity from the Deviant rule, smashing their empire and sending them underground, a defeat that they would not recover from. In the modern age, the Celestials have interacted with humanity in much the same way they have on Earth-616. In recent history, the Eternals found it fit to leave the Earth for good, however their reasoning for doing so remains unrevealed. They would take up residence on an as yet unidentified planet. Their poor luck would have it to be yet another planet impregnated by the Celestials, and upon the Celestial birth on that world, the planet was destroyed. The Eternals would find themselves encased in Vibranium and left floating in space. As they are immortal they would survive this fate worse than death. Their bodies would be found by the Inhuman Royal Family, who would believe that Vibranium was the cause of a catastrophe and decided to return to Earth to warn it's heroes. It would not be until years later when Cable (now consumed entirely by the Techno-Organic Virus and living below Sentinel City) would ask Iron Maiden (who had full control over Vibranium) to go into space and free the Eternals. This is because, one in particular Sersi, had the ability to use her powers to restore Cable to his original form. If Iron Maiden was successful remains to be revealed. | Habitat = Earth standard | Gravity = Earth standard | Atmosphere = Earth standard | Population = About 1000 | Powers = *All Eternals can join the Uni-Mind. *All possess psionic abilities to varying degrees. *All possess enhanced strength to varying degrees. *All Eternals are extremely long-lived. *All Eternals can project cosmic energy from their hands and eyes. *Eternals choose to specialize in particular powers and attributes. | Abilities = | AvgStrength = Superhuman | Weaknesses = | GovernmentType = Mentor leads the Titan group; Ikaris leads the Olympia group | TechnologyLevel = Highly Advanced | CulturalTraits = | Representatives = Ajak, Kingo Sunen, Kronos (Chronos), Legba, Makkari, Mentor (A'Lars), Phastos, Pixie, Sersi, Sui-San, Sprite, Starfox (Eros), Thanos, Thena, Uranos, Valkin, El Vampiro, Zuras, among many others. | Notes = * There exists a genetic predisposition among the Eternals known as Deviant Syndrome. The only known individual afflicted with the Deviant Syndrome is Thanos. The origins of Deviant Syndrome is unknown and it is also unknown whether it exists among all Eternals or only those of Titan. An individual afflicted with the Deviant Syndrome more closely resembles the Deviants than the Eternals. | Trivia = | Links = Image:Eternals Vol 1 1.jpg| Eternals (The Comics) * }} Category:Celestials Experiment Category:Genus Homo Category:Eternals by Species or Race